


Wasteland Tim

by dCryptid



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, First Time, Illustrated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:41:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26050567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dCryptid/pseuds/dCryptid
Summary: The Dust is inhospitable to many - too dry, too hot, too full of bandits and other nasties intent on killing all comers. But to Tim, after his flight from Helios Station, it has become home. It's a hard place to scrape out a living, full of new strangers and new dangers, but Jack isn't there, and that's all he cares about.
Relationships: Gaige/Timothy Lawrence
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Wasteland Tim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first off: this work is intended to be a direct continuation of where I left off with my other Timothy-centric series, [_perfect match_](https://archiveofourown.org/series/552103). you can absolutely get by reading this piece without without having read _perfect match_ (if you do choose to go back and read, please be warned it's rife with potentially triggering material), but it does provide some useful context to who this version of Tim has become, in the wake of the things he experienced during the events of that series. the critical thing to know going into this work is that, after being repeatedly assaulted and abused by Handsome Jack, Tim managed to escape his grasp and flee to Pandora. I like to think of this work as some small redemption for things I put Tim through. sorry boo <3
> 
> second: this work was conceptualized and written in 2016/2017, and was at the time theoretically canon-compliant, as Tim's whereabouts were unknown. I did REALLY enjoy Handsome Jackpot (my bae!! returned to me!!) but this work doesn't fit into the canon timeline at all. in addition, a lot of Tim's backstory as presented here (and in _perfect match_ ) is a wholesale invention on my part and I don't have excuses so don't @ me.
> 
> third: potentially a weird pairing?? also don't @ me. I don't remember where my head was at when this idea came to me.
> 
> fourth: ILLUSTRATED! all drawings also done by me and it's the reason it took me so bloody long to actually post this thing. drawings were done chronologically from 2017 to 2020 so marvel at my skill progress from the first image to the last, it's legitimately impressive.
> 
> enjoy!!

The Dust sucks.

It’s dry, it’s hot, bandits keep trying to kill him, and they’re stupid enough to return to the same place after he drives them out - repeatedly.

Tim pauses for a moment to survey his surroundings, pushing the sweat up off his forehead and into his hair. It hasn’t grown in any redder than “dark auburn” after all these months, despite Nina’s promises, and he doesn’t have a practical way of trimming it short, so keeping it pushed back off his face is a constant struggle. The goggles help a little, and have the added benefit of keeping the blowing grit that the Dust was named for out of his eyes.

  
  


The bandits look to be gone, for now. They always repopulate their camps within a day or so, bitching and moaning about everything they lost from his raids, but don’t seem terribly inclined to move anywhere else. 

They call him “Ringer.” He’s not sure if they mean it in the sports idiom sense or the “dead ringer” sense, and has been more concerned with shooting them to ask too many questions. He’s taken to thinking of himself as “Tim” - after all he’s been through, “Timmy” was starting to sound a bit too juvenile. 

He adjusts his goggles and gets to work, cleaning out the camp of anything that looks like it might be useful, scooping it all into the military duffel he’s carrying. The camp is on the small side, with just a few ramshackle structures built of sheet metal and concrete slab, and it only takes him a few minutes to work his way across the entire complex. He bangs into the dilapidated shack that serves as a bathroom - these bandits hide their ammo in the _weirdest_ places - only to be immediately accosted by his own reflection.

He stops, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead as he approaches the mirror hanging crookedly on the wall. It’s new, this particular set of bandits definitely did not have a mirror last time he raided their camp, but that’s not what stops him. It’s not very often that one gets to see their own reflection when they live in a place where everything gets scoured coarse and dull by blowing dust.

Nothing has changed. He’s got scars on his temples, chin, and cheekbones - implants, Nina had said, stupid Jack and his stupid chiseled features - and the rough, raised marks stand out against his sun-darkened skin. His fingers had told him there were scars behind his ears and at the base of his skull, too, though they bothered him less than the ones directly on his face. His jawline is darkened by more of a perpetual stubble than five o’clock shadow, never growing out longer than half an inch no matter what he does or doesn’t do to it.

  
  


He’s also got heavy, dark bags under his eyes, a faint smear of freckles across his nose and cheeks, and a little spatter of blood along the side of his face. He licks his thumb and scrubs the red marks away.

“Remember when you had a crisis about being a killer?” he asks his own reflection. “That was cute.” 

His voice has gone raspy. It’s not like it was before the implant, but it’s not like Jack’s, either. He’s fine with that, though he sometimes has terrible coughing fits, and there’s yet another scar running down the center of his throat, currently hidden by the folds of his scarf.

Sure enough, there’s a box of pistol ammo stashed in the bowl of the toilet - _why, bandits, why_ \- and he pulls his goggles back down over his eyes before stepping outside.

It’s only a short trek back to his own shack, a solid concrete affair that’s half-covered by the Dust’s constantly shifting sands, and he has to dig at the doorjamb a little before he can get inside and drop the half-full duffel on the floor. He’ll sort out the contents later.

Setting the cheap gun that had seen him through the firefight on the table, he casts a furtive glance at the back wall. There’s a cavity behind the concrete, the opening blocked off with sheet metal and a heavy crate, and it’s where the best of his guns are hidden away to keep the worst of the bandits off his back. He wishes he could take them out, raise some real hell, maybe chase his neighbors out of their camps forever, but he knows that’s not sustainable. So he sticks to whites and greens, competent enough to be dangerous even when using guns that jam if you so much as look at them funny, and the bandits seem convinced that his place isn’t worth investigating for better loot.

The digi-gauntlets are back there too. Janey had disabled their network links, so they were safe to use, but they still only spawned Jacks. He doesn’t have the know-how to change the settings, or the stomach to use them as they are. Plus, it might raise some questions with the raiders, now that Jack had moved on to making Pandora his own personal pet project.

He looks out across the sands, absentmindedly scratching the scar on the back of his neck. The light is dimming, signalling the end of another long Pandoran day. A long day in a chain of long, hard days, stretching so far into the foreseeable future that Tim can’t predict the end of it.

Freedom sometimes isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.

\---------------

One day, he sees a Vault Hunter out in the Dust.

They’re usually easy to pick out, more brightly dressed than your usual raiders and packing nastier weapons, and this one is no exception. He panics, hides everything but the very shittiest of his weapons in the wall, and hunkers down to watch. She’s just a slip of a thing, with a shock of bright red hair that sends a pang of jealousy through him, but the shotgun in her hands is bigger than her torso.

She engages the local bandits almost cheerfully, and he recognizes competence when he sees it - agile motions in and out of cover, quick and focused bursts of fire, the methodical way she clears the area zone by zone. At one point, she summons a giant robot of some sort, and it immediately proceeds to make mincemeat of whatever bandits it can get its claws into. Neat. 

She’s got a robotic arm, too, which is sort of weird, but Tim used to hang out with someone who was doing his damndest to become a robot, so he supposes it’s not his place to judge.

The Vault Hunter is handling things well on her own, but Tim decides to lend her a hand anyways. Getting in good with the Vault Hunters - maybe not the smartest idea, with how dead focused Jack was on killing every one of them that made it to this planet, but it’s better to be on their side than against them, and this one looks friendly enough.

He picks out an assault rifle, something with range so he can keep his distance if things go sour, and trots out to flank a small group of bandits that are hiding around a corner out of her line of sight.

When he begins to fire, her head swivels sharply to look in his direction, and he hails her with one hand, hoping she receives the gesture as friendly instead of hostile. He knows he looks more _bandit_ than _Vault Hunter_ these days, but he’s still got all the hard earned experience behind him, and knows how to put it to good use. Bandits are no trouble, and this redheaded Vault Hunter looks pretty green, but he’s got absolutely no desire to face off against that tricked-out robot.

She nods at him, and together they mop up the last of the cowering bandits.

When the last enemy falls, he immediately tucks the assault rifle into his SDU and holds up both hands in a gesture of surrender as she lowers her own gun and heads his way, stopping to pick over the corpses of a few bandits that lie in the sand between them.

  
  


“They’ll be back in no time,” he says as soon as she’s in earshot, straining to get his damaged voice up to a reasonable shouting volume. “You’re welcome to come inside, if you want. Rest a little while. I’ve got a place not far from here.”

She pauses, considering, then nods, the heavy shotgun held relaxed at her side. “All right, then,” she says brightly. “Lead the way. And put your hands down, I’m not going to _shoot_ you.” Dear god, she’s actually smiling at him. “Unless you try something,” she adds as an afterthought.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he replies, dropping his hands and jerking his head in the general direction of his shack. “This way.”

He expects her to follow at his heels, ready to shoot him in the back, but she catches up and walks beside him. The robot had despawned, at some point, leaving just the two of them. “I’m Gaige,” she says after a minute, all sunshine and light. She looks a lot younger up close, pigtails and all - definitely still a teenager, and Tim can’t help but be curious as to how she ended up on Pandora.

“Tim,” he replies. “Though the bandits you just murdered the absolute shit out of call me Ringer.” She snorts at his phrasing, and he can’t help but grin a little bit, pulling the scarf he wears mantled around his shoulders up over his mouth to hide it, grateful for the goggles covering his eyes.

The door to his shack scrapes across the sand as he pulls it open and holds it for her, and she mocks him with a slight curtsey before entering, unconcerned about exposing her back to him as he follows.

“Nice place,” she comments, looking up at the low ceiling, and while he’s _pretty_ sure she’s being sarcastic, he doesn’t comment on it.

  
  


“You want some water?” he asks, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead and rearranging his mantle to sit lower around his shoulders. “Something to eat?” It feels odd to be playing host, in this beat-down shack in the middle of a dry wasteland, but somehow it still comes naturally. “I don’t have much, but…”

“Who does?” Gaige finishes for him. “Food and water would be awesome. I haven’t eaten since, ugh, I dunno. _Way_ too long.” She squints at his newly-uncovered face. “You look familiar.”

Tim’s heart almost stops. “Everyone starts to look the same, out here in the wastes,” he says, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice, and she shrugs before turning away to plop herself down on the battered, saggy couch like she’s lived here for years.

The water feeds from a gravity tank on the roof, fresh enough for drinking, and he pops the tabs on two MREs and lets them heat as he draws water into a pair of mismatched tin cups. He brings Gaige her portion first, then sets up a crate as a makeshift chair on the other side of the coffee table before going back to claim his own.

She’s already digging in as he sits down, and he picks through his own food looking for the least appetizing bits first. “I take it you’re a Vault Hunter, then?” he asks, and she nods vigorously, her mouth full of food.

“Tha’ o’vious?” she mumbles, and Tim swallows another smile.

“They have a... certain look. Not to mention the tendency to swiftly and mercilessly kill every remotely threatening-looking thing.”

“Those bandits shot at _me_ first,” she snorts, shoveling another sporkful into her mouth.

“No need to justify it to me, they’re my neighbors. Loud music at all hours of the night, never mow their lawn...they were asking for it, really.” After so many months of basically zero social contact, and so much time before that where he hadn’t been able to have any social contact as _himself_ , Tim is surprised at how quickly it’s come back to him. Gaige’s outgoing nature practically demands familiarity. He wonders if she’s this immediately comfortable with everyone.

“How long have you been on Pandora, then?” he presses. “We...well, you don’t really see many Vault Hunters around, these days.”

“Mm, not long,” Gaige replies, swallowing. “There was this whole thing with a train which was, I dunno, few weeks ago now? And before _that_ there was that whole thing I got into back home on Eden-5 -”

“Wait wait wait,” Tim interrupts. “You’re from Eden-5?”

She nods, her mouth once again full of food.

“I’m from the system next door. Paradiso Prime.”

Her eyes widen. “Oh man, you’re a knockoff!”

“No, no,” he argues, “Paradiso was founded first. _Eden_ is the knockoff.”

“What _ever_ , man.” Gaige wipes her mouth, almost delicately compared to how she was shoveling down the food, and takes a drink of water. “So what are _you_ doing on Pandora, then? Seeing as you don’t seem to be a Vault Hunter, yourself.”

Tim shrugs. “I survive.”

Gaige’s eyes sharpen, and he notices for the first time how extraordinarily green they are. “What did you do before, then? Back on Paradiso Prime?”

It would be easy to lie, to make something up wholesale and get her to buy it. It’s not like she could find a way to prove him wrong. All vestiges of Timothy Lawrence are long, long gone... 

So why would he bother lying?

“I was in school,” he tells her. “College. Studying Art History with a minor in Theater - not the most career-smart decisions, I know, but it’s what I wanted to do. And then I was postgrad, and I couldn’t get a job to quite literally save my life, because my damn student loans were just about crushing me.” He takes a deep breath. “So I turned to sex work. It was all I could think to do, and it sort of sucked but it paid the bills, kept Mom from kicking me out of the house. But I didn’t want to do it forever. So I took a job way out here - worst decision of my life, really - and some things went...erm...a bit sour. And now I’m here.” He shrugs loosely. “Life story in under sixty seconds.”

It feels good to get it all out there.

He hadn’t missed the way she perked up at the “sex worker” bit, and hadn’t expected anything less, but the way she suddenly tucks her hands between her thighs and fidgets catches him off guard.

“Did you ever...um...take someone’s virginity?” she asks nervously, and he blinks.

“I don’t know,” he replies thoughtfully. “Maybe once or twice? Not many people went to their friendly neighborhood twink for that sort of thing.”

She blushes, looking mortified. “Oh. I didn’t realize you were -”

“Gay?” he cuts her off. “Not really. I did ‘em all. Couldn’t really afford to be picky, but yeah. I got more male clients. Nature of the beast, I think.” A sudden uncomfortable thought strikes him, and he leans back in his seat. “Erm, how old are you?”

“Eighteen,” she replies immediately. “Almost nineteen.”

Tim breathes a sigh of relief.

“You don’t look like a twink,” Gaige pipes up, and he can tell she’s trying to salvage the moment.

“I didn’t always look like this.” He twists his hands together in his lap to keep from raising a hand to his face. “I was ginger, skinny...had freckles, too. Little bit nerdy, really.” Even as he says it, he can’t keep his eyes off her lean frame and red hair. “More than a little.”

The shack brightens when Gaige laughs. “Nothing wrong with being a skinny ginger nerd,” she says sweetly. “You saw my Deathtrap, yeah? I built him from scratch. The arm, too,” and she rolls her metallic shoulder so that it catches the light.

Tim blinks. “Impressive,” he murmurs, and while he’s trying to take it in Gaige reaches across the space between them and touches his face, trailing her fingers along the knotted scar on his cheek. Her hand is warm.

“If you didn’t always look like this,” she asks softly, “why do you look like this now?”

  
  


He pulls away, and she draws back her hand. “Getting the work done wasn’t exactly my idea,” he says. “Came with the new job.”

Her hands are back between her thighs, pushing the hem of her short schoolgirl skirt down between them, cheeks turning pink as she worries her bottom lip with her teeth. When she raises her gaze, she can’t seem to bring herself to look directly at him. 

“Do you still -” she starts, nervously. “Would you - could you....?”

It takes him a moment to realize what she’s trying to ask, and can’t help how sharply he looks at her when he finally understands.

“I haven’t done work like that in a long time,” he says shortly. “And I’ve been alone almost as long.” If he’s interpreting this correctly, he’s surprised she’s still a virgin - but maybe not all Vault Hunters are as depraved as the ones he used to know, or the one he used to be.

Gaige looks like she wants to crawl inside her own skin, but pushes on anyways. “Maybe - maybe don’t think of it as work, then. Maybe it’s...a favor, or something.”

Tim stands, nearly knocking his forgotten MRE to the dusty floor, and takes a few short strides away. “How do I know I can trust you?” he asks, almost accusingly, and winces at his own tone. “You’re a Vault Hunter. You could kill me and rob me and there’s not a thing I could do to stop you.”

“You don’t know,” she replies.

There’s a long moment of silence. Tim looks out through the door, left open to allow some small amount of air to circulate through the shack. “There’s a dust storm coming. You’re going to have to stay anyways, so you might as well help me batten everything down.” Better to be on the side of the Vault Hunters than against them.

Together, they close the shack up, stopping up all the gaps with tape and sandbags and stolen bits of bandit clothing until it’s sealed tight. It’s hot inside, and Tim loosens the neck of his jacket, feeling Gaige’s eyes on him. The wind outside is starting to pick up.

“If you really want to,” he says quietly, “I wouldn’t object. But only if you’re sure.”

“I am,” she replies, “I’m sure.”

“In this raider’s shack, in the middle of a godforsaken wasteland, when you don’t even know who I am and I don’t know who you are, and there’s a sandstorm raging outside?”

“It’s about as nice as anyplace I’ve been on Pandora,” she says with a sincere smile, “and you’re about as nice as any of the people I’ve met here.”

Tim unwraps the mantle from around his shoulders, draping it over a hook on the wall. Gaige is standing still in the center of the room, and he approaches her slowly.

“I’ll ask your permission every step of the way,” he tells her. “You’re in charge, all right? I promise.”

“I -” she swallows. “I’d appreciate that.” He’s close enough now that she has to look up to meet his eyes, and he closes the last barrier of personal space between them by reaching out to cup her waist with one hand.

She flinches a little at the touch, but doesn’t pull away. “You can change your mind,” he tells her. “Whenever. If you need to.” He brings his other hand to rest on her other side.

Those green eyes become fierce as she looks up at him. “I won’t.”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he steps forward to close the last few inches between them, hearing the way her breath catches in her throat as he presses his body against hers. He slips his hands down to her hips and sneaks his thumbs under the hem of her shirt, stroking her bare skin with the coarse pads of his thumbs.

He doesn’t kiss her. Instead, he presses his cheek to hers, exhaling a hot breath across her ear and neck. “You’re in charge,” he murmurs into her ear. “What do you want?”

He doesn’t get a reply, but her hands come up to rest on his chest as he massages her hipbones with his thumbs, inching the hem of her shirt up higher and higher.

“I’ll figure it out,” she whispers back, then grabs his face and pulls away just so she can crush her mouth to his in a sloppy, savage kiss.

  
  


She’s trying to make up for her prior nervousness with bravado, he can tell, but rolls with it, sliding his hands up the back of her shirt and bending over her. Her mouth opens against his and he runs his tongue along her teeth, feeling her gasp and immediately attempt to replicate the maneuver on him. Eager but inexperienced, he thinks, biting her bottom lip to get the upper hand before licking his way inside her mouth. Her hands are still tight against the sides of his face, warm flesh and cool metal, and he respects her grip, keeping his head mostly still even as he kisses her deeply.

Eventually she moves her hands up, pushing his goggles off his head and tangling her fingers in his hair as they clatter to the floor. She doesn’t seem inclined to tire of kissing him anytime soon, and he lets her carry on as long as she wants, though he can’t help but bring his hands back down to her hips to press their bodies more tightly together.

Her breath hitches in surprise, and she finally pulls away, her eyes flickering downward. Honestly, Tim had been a bit worried about his ability to get it up - after all that had happened, before, during, and after Jack - but he’d been so long without human companionship that the mere presence of another warm body was more than enough. _Easy, slowly,_ he reminds himself over the sound of his own blood in his ears, and doesn’t move a muscle.

Gaige looks back up at him wearing a shocked and curious expression, and Tim nods at her. “Your call,” he tells her, and she bites her lip before grabbing the front of his jacket and tugging him around - she’s surprisingly strong, for her short stature and lithe frame.

“Couch,” she tells him, pushing him backwards towards the battered piece of furniture in question, and he obliges, sitting down hard when his calves make contact with the seat. The springs squeak in protest. She remains standing, looking down at him with her bottom lip still held between her teeth, and Tim spreads his knees and leans back against the cushions, waiting for her. 

In one fluid motion, she undoes the tool-laden belt at her waist and lets it drop to the floor before straddling his lap, her knees on either side of his hips. She runs her hands down his arms to his wrists, robotic fingers cool, and guides his palms to her thighs, only letting go once he’s curled his fingers around them. She’s lean and hard, not a wasted ounce on her, and he can practically encircle her leg with his thumb and forefinger.

Having the height advantage seems to make her feel more comfortable, but she still takes a deep breath before leaning down to kiss him some more, less urgently this time, trying to find a rhythm in combating the moves of his tongue.

They’re both starting to sweat, in the heat of the closed-up shack - Tim can feel the moisture on his skin and the heat rising from hers - and he slips his hands up the back of her thighs, under her skirt, and over the modest swell of her ass. The striped stockings she’s wearing are apparently only thigh-high, and there is a brief expanse of bare skin between stockings and panties. It seems daring, for someone who runs around a planet like Pandora all day - but then again, she’s daring enough to ask a stranger to give her her first sexual experience on a ratty old couch.

She squeaks into his mouth as he squeezes her ass, and bites his lip before breaking away to catch her breath. He takes the opportunity to kiss her neck instead, nibbling at the thin skin below her ear, and she squeaks again.

“Do that again,” she demands. “Harder.”

When he bites down her squeak turns into a breathy moan, and when he worries the skin with his teeth the moan turns into a desperate “oh, _fuck_ ” and he is very, very grateful that the cargo pants he has taken to wearing are exceptionally roomy.

He continues to work over her neck as she melts against him, and as he bites down on the join of her shoulder he slips his fingers over her ass and between her thighs. She jumps, trying to clamp her legs together on reflex, but they’re braced apart by the spread of his own knees.

But when he withdraws his hands, the noise she makes can only be described as a complaint, and she leans back away from him, finding the bottom hem of her shirt and struggling to pull it over her head. He helps her, loosening the fabric where it pinches in the shoulder plates of her robotic arm, and she pitches it halfway across the room once it’s off. He barely catches a glimpse of her bra before she sheds it too, sending it across the room to join her shirt.

Her breasts match her figure, modestly sized but high and firm, and he cups them in his hands, feeling the nipples pebble against his palms. Belatedly, he realizes he’s been terrible about asking her permission for things. “Okay?” he questions, looking up at her.

She laughs at him. “Yes, okay,” she reassures him. “I trust you to know what you’re doing.”

“Okay. Alright.” Apparently the hormones are hitting him hard, because forming a complete sentence is the most difficult thing in the world right now. His dick is pulsing, annoyed at the lack of friction despite the perfectly acceptable quantity of other person that is _right there_ , and he takes a deep breath.

“Could you...touch me?” Gaige asks, gently touching his hands to guide them back towards her hips. “While you…?” She gestures in the general direction of her own chest, then buries her face in her hands. “Oh, fucking hell, I’m terrible at this.”

“No, no,” Tim shushes her, fighting his own blurry-headedness. “You’re fine. I said whatever you want, and you let me know what you want in whatever way is comfortable for you, okay?”

She peeks at him from between her fingers. “Just...do whatever you want unless I say to stop?”

“I can do that,” he reassures her, and it’s his turn to take ahold of her wrists, placing her hands on his shoulders before returning one of his own hands to her chest and the other to her thigh.

He knows what _he_ wants, but what she _needs_ is more important.

  
  


When he drags his tongue over her nipple for the first time, her entire body ripples, fingers digging into his shoulders almost hard enough to hurt. When he takes it into his mouth, scrapes his teeth over it, she arches, and he flicks the other with the pad of his thumb as his tongue swirls around the one in his mouth.

The hand on her thigh slides upwards and inwards, slipping between her legs to brush two fingers over the crotch of her panties even as he bites down gently on her nipple. The noises she makes are small and desperate, and he finds that her underwear are already soaked as her hips twitch against his hand.

“Please,” she whimpers, and he pushes the thin fabric barrier aside so he can drag his fingertips through her damp folds, switching his mouth to her other breast as he does so. She shudders, and he seeks her clit, brushing featherlight touches over the nub when he finds it. It’s like she’s been electrocuted, her whole body spasming, and she chokes out “ _too much_.”

That’s alright. He quests the other direction, finding her entrance, circling it with one exploratory finger, and she rolls her hips against his hand. His dick throbs sympathetically in his pants, and he gently pushes his middle finger into her, the muscles of her thighs coiling around his wrist in time with the way her interior muscles clench around the invading digit.

He bites her nipple again, harder this time, and she pushes her chest against his mouth, breathing becoming ragged as he strokes the front wall of her vagina with his finger. Her arms are wrapped around his head, now, fingers tangled in his overlong hair.

“Please,” she pants, “please, please,” and he works a second finger into her, slowly, gently.

She hooks her arms around his neck and tugs at him. “I’m ready. Please, I’m ready, please-”

“Shh,” he shushes, nosing his way up to her throat to kiss at her collarbone. “Trust me, okay? Trust me.” She only whimpers in reply, and he nips at her neck as he slowly, slowly eases a third finger into her, scissoring them gently, making her squeak and shake. She’s tight, too tight, and he doesn’t want to hurt her later on, so he takes his time with warming her up, gently thrusting in and out of her. She takes his head in both her hands and guides his mouth back to her breasts, and he licks and sucks at her nipples as she arches over him, hands trembling against his cheeks.

“Are you…?” she asks, then suddenly sits down hard on his lap. The back of his hand bumps against his cock and he hisses through his teeth, his fingers sliding out of her. Her own fingers land on his belt and zipper, fumbling them open before he can stop her.

“You don’t need to -” he starts, but is silenced when she looks up at him sharply.

“I _want_ to,” she tells him, and he leans back against the couch when her hand slips into his underwear to grasp hesitantly at his cock, drawing it out of his pants.

Her gaze is wondrous and a little scared as she strokes over the head with featherlight touches, and Tim feels like he’s about to die. He’s barely touched himself since he came to Pandora, and even her inexperienced hands are almost too much.

She keeps her robotic hand clenched on her own thigh as her flesh hand explores every millimeter of his cock with a torturous gentleness, until he can’t take it anymore.

“You need to -” He gently wraps his hand around hers, forcing her to tighten her grip. “And then -” He guides her hand, up, down, and has to bite back a grunt.

“Okay,” she says, “okay,” and he lets her go. She bites her lip and strokes him again, fingertips passing over the head and smearing the precum that was starting to gather there, and Tim throws his head back and bites his knuckles, focusing all his energy on _not_ thrusting up into her hand.

“Hnf - not too much. I don’t want to…” He gestures vaguely, then makes a strange, strangled noise as she strokes him firmly for a third time. Deciding that he absolutely needs to make that stop, right this instant, he grabs her shoulders and twists her down onto her back on the couch.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, when he sees the startled look on her face, and to his surprise she smirks in reply.

“It’s okay,” she says, pressing a thigh up between his legs, and he involuntarily grinds down on it.

“Shoot,” he chokes out, before shoving his hands up her skirt to pull her panties down. Tossing them aside, he settles back over her and thrusts two fingers up inside her again, her back arching. She reaches up around his neck to pull him down to kiss her, and he goes willingly, pinning one knee up against her chest with the weight of his body.

  
  


He dares to brush her clit with his thumb, and this time the shudder that runs through her is less extreme, though she keens into his mouth and rolls her hips hard against his hand. He does it again, but she uses the leg between them to leverage him away from her.

“Stop,” she pants, “I don’t want to…until…”

“It’s better if you do,” he replies, trying to work his fingers deeper inside her, but she pushes him away again.

“I _don’t want to_ ,” she insists, and he sits back on his heels. It suddenly occurs to him that they both still have their shoes on.

There’s sweat dripping into his eyes - the shack might as well be an oven - and for the first time he notices that the sound of the dust storm outside has swelled around them, the winds whistling and roaring as they make their way through the ruins of the old oasis.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells her, rolling off the couch and heading for the shelf in the corner.

Bless the bandits for hoarding everything they find, because he’s picked up more than one box of condoms during his raids on their camps. He’s not sure why he kept them, or why the bandits had them in the first place, but is glad now that they exist, ripping one of the cartons open and tearing two packets loose from the strip.

When he returns to the couch, he toes off his boots and wriggles out of his jacket before crawling back over her. She’s seemingly unconcerned about the disparity in their levels of dress - Tim is more or less fully clothed, just undone, while she is topless and pantiless, her skirt hiked up over her hips to reveal a patch of vibrant red pubic hair above the black and white stripes of her stockings.

Tim pauses, then brushes her sweat-dampened bangs off her forehead. “You’re sure, then?”

Gaige nods. “Yep.” Her face is flushed, all the way down her neck to her chest, and Tim notices that he’s left a few small marks along her collarbone.

“It might hurt. You might -”

“Bleed, I know.” She smiles, shrugs. “Everyone is different. But I can handle a little blood if I do.”

“Last chance.”

She reaches down and wraps her fingers around his dick. “Not taking it.”

Tim nods at her, ripping one of the condoms open with his teeth and rolling it on as quickly as he can while Gaige watches, investigating with her fingertips once he’s fully sheathed.

He grabs her hips and adjusts them, then takes one of her knees and hikes it up against his side before positioning himself at her entrance, one foot braced against the floor. “Ready?” he asks, pushing forward just a little.

“Ready,” she breathes, and he thrusts forward.

Her back arches, and he presses forward again, working his way inside her with short, shallow movements. On his third thrust he feels _something_ give, but she doesn’t cry out or cringe so he works through it, bringing one hand to tease her nipples as he pushes his way deeper and deeper, until he’s sheathed inside her up to the hilt.

He stops to catch his breath. It’s a _lot_ , almost too much, she’s clenched-fist-tight and feels hot enough to burn him, and he struggles to think of something that falls into the comfortable zone of unsexy things that won’t send him into a panic attack.

“You okay?” he rasps out, and she stretches her arms up around his neck and kisses him as a way of responding.

“I am _amazing_ ,” she tells him when she finally lets him go. “Please do more of that again, forever.”

He actually laughs at that, and she beams at him. “If you insist, then.” When he pulls back, she whimpers, and when he thrusts, she nearly screams

“ _Fuck_ yes,” she chokes out, and Tim swallows another laugh.

It takes him a minute to find a rhythm and angle that works for both of them, but when he hits it he _knows_ , and she coils underneath him, clamping down around his dick. He fucks her slow and steady, at least at first, but when she pants out “ _harder, faster, please_ ” he listens, hooking one of her knees over his shoulder and grabbing her hips for better leverage, biting his own tongue to keep from coming too soon. The storm outside continues to blow, battering the shack with dust and occasional debris, but he hardly notices.

Gaige’s robotic hand seeks out her own nipple, while her flesh hand slips between her legs, barely brushing the shaft of Tim’s cock as he thrusts into her before skimming over her clit. She squeaks and clenches hard enough to trap Tim inside her, throwing off his rhythm. Too close to the edge, he throws caution to the wind and slams into her harder, and Gaige screams as she throws her head back and comes.

Every muscle in her lean body tenses to the max, and Tim tries to fuck her through it, but he’s far too close to his own climax, and his hips stutter into her before he comes, too.

He collapses onto her chest, completely spent, not even caring about the sweaty mess they’ve both become. Gaige laughs faintly, then pushes at his shoulder. “Get off, you’re heavy,” she says breathlessly, and he complies, wiggling sideways to tuck himself between her body and the back of the couch. 

“Okay?” he asks her, once he can speak again, and she giggles.

“Very okay,” she assures him, and he rests his head on her shoulder.

“The storm doesn’t seem to be dying down at all,” Gaige comments a few minutes later, pulling Tim back from the brink of sleep, and he lifts his head to listen to the wind outside.

“They can go on for a while. An hour or two, maybe.”

She looks at him, then grins and reaches up to boop his nose. “You still have freckles, you know,” she says, and the tiny flower of warmth that blooms inside Tim’s chest is the most sincere and appreciated emotion he’s felt in months.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you absolutely CAN @ me about any details I may have gotten wrong, specifically about Gaige and Tim's backstories, coz I'm a big sucker for getting that kind of stuff right.
> 
> otherwise big thank you for reading and maybe even looking at my arts!! wow. if you would like to see higher-rez versions of the illustrations, as well as some related sketches, progress pics, etc, you can take a peek at my very sparse [tumblr account](https://dcryptid.tumblr.com/), which at this moment exists solely to house information and doodles related to this project.
> 
> this is intended to be a multi-chapter work, and - incredibly - the next chapter IS already written. I do want to illustrate it as well, because it was fun to do this one even if it took forever, but I think I need to take some time to do other stuff first, so it will likely be a while (hopefully not three years again holy shit) before it's done and posted. spoilers: it has _Moxxi_ in it, get hype lads


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